25 Days of Thanks Day 25

The Dix Family gives thanks!

Today I am Thankful for everything! I know it’s very cliché but it’s so true!


Last night the girls and I decided to make a last minute thankful turkey project. We have never done this before and I thought the girls were old enough now to both think of things they are thankful for.
So I got out my new Cricut. (which I LOVE) Believe it or not I still don’t own any cartridges other than the ones it came with. I did however purchase the Sure-cuts-a-lot program which allows you to virtually create anything imaginable. Check out the program here. I still use it blindly and have so much to learn.  I wanted a turkey cut out for our project but being on a budget I really didn’t want to purchase one. I sat down at the computer and created this little guy…..


Simple I know, but I just think he’s so cute! Other than the feet and the wings which are hand drawn the rest of this little guy is all mouse drawn. I just love to create cute little images on my computer. You can use your creations for so many different things. I hope to someday really learn about designing graphics but until then I’ll just have to do things my cheat way! I know it’s  a little late but feel free to grab this little cutie if you want! Just be sure to tell everyone where you got him.

Anyway on to my Cricut and the sure cuts a lot program. While making the turkey in photoshop I made sure each part of the him was a different layer. I am certainly not a photoshop expert nor do I claim to be one on T.V. I am sure some of you seasoned photoshop users will find all the flaws in the way that I do things! LOL! That is another thing on my list of things to learn, better photoshop skills. Sheesh, I wish there was a place that I could take a class on all the things on my list to learn! Any tips and tricks on any of my projects is greatly appreciated.


Well shoot I thought I had been doing so good with my rambling! I guess not!

So while designing my turkey I made sure each part was a separate layer. When everything looked just right I saved the whole thing as a psd file. I then saved each individual layer as a jpg.  and loaded them into my sure cuts a lot program.  I don’t know how the svg file makers do it? Being this was a paper piecing project it took a while for me to get the pieces to all be the appropriate proportions. Finally when I put it all together to make sure the pieces fit, I saved my project as an SVG file. When I was ready to cut him out I got out the colors I wanted and cut out the pieces one by one. I “hid” all the parts I wasn’t cutting at the time so that the Cricut was only cutting the one piece I needed for the color of the paper I was using at the time. Not sure if this is making sense but if you want to give this a try and need help let me know and I’ll try to help the best I can. Like I said I’m no expert, in fact I need all the help I can get! LOL! 
So here is our finished Thankful Turkey project…


            


I've only had my Cricut for about a month, I don’t have any fancy papers yet, and I’ve never done paper piecing before let alone design my own svg. but all those things considered I think he turned out pretty adorable! What do you think?

 

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